I Am Legend is a science-fiction horror novel written by Richard Matheson, published in 1954. It dives deep into a plot with disease-infested zombie-vampires taking over the world through an apocalypse. It follows the story of Robert Neville, an ingenious scientist and the survivor of a “man-made plague” that turns everyone into bloodthirsty vampires. Robert is faced to walk alone through New York City in search of other survivors. He tries to make a cure for the disease with his own blood which is immune to the disease. The novel is dark, heavy, and intense but can be seen as a gripping tale that has become the inspiration for many other works of the sort.
Through the years, the book has accumulated both positive as well as negative critiques. American author Damon Knight shared his thoughts on the novel, saying it brought up many good ideas but failed to develop them further. He described the characters as “child's drawings, as blank-eyed and expressionless as the author himself in his back-cover photograph.” Another review by Dan Schneider from International Writers Magazine explains that the novel isn’t really a vampire horror story, but “Instead, it is perhaps the greatest novel written on human loneliness. It far surpasses Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe in that regard.”
I Am Legend went on to inspire many films in the zombie apocalypse, science fiction, horror film genre, some of which include The Last Man on Earth (1964), The Omega Man (1971), and Night of the Living Dead (1968). It was the inspiration for several comic book series, radio plays, and the novel was adapted into a film for itself in 2007. It currently holds 4.5 out of 5 stars on book review site GoodReads. Though it has mixed reviews, it has been analyzed thoroughly and has become the inspiration for many other works to follow.
